Ultra-Processed Food ‘Fetishism’ is Undermining Efforts Seeking Healthy, Equitable, and Sustainable Diets Globally

Abstract Calls have been growing for government interventions to address diets high in ultra-processed foods (i.e., ultra-processed diets), which are associated with a large and rising burden of preventable death and disease. To date, however, government action relating to ultra-processed foods (UPFs) has been mostly insufficient. In this paper, we argue that one of the key reasons behind this lacklustre response has been the dominance of ‘UPF fetishism’ in scientific, public, and policy discussions. Adapting Marx’s concept of ‘commodity fetishism’, we refer to UPF fetishism as the tendency to view UPFs only in terms of their final qualities or characteristics at the point of purchase (e.g., price, quality, convenience), while failing to consider all the socio-ecological processes, relations, and activities involved in their provisioning (e.g., intensive agriculture, widespread value extraction). UPF fetishism, we argue, undermines efforts seeking healthy, equitable, and sustainable diets worldwide by obscuring the wide range of harms and inequities generated along the entire UPF value chain, and by undermining and potentially foreclosing discussions on alternative visions and solutions for improving population diets. Researchers and advocates can help to challenge UPF fetishism by turning their focus to the structural and systemic drivers of ultra-processed diets. Taking this critical systems-level view ultimately draws attention the need to confront the very systems – particularly corporate food systems, late capitalism, and imperialism – that structure and sustain the harmful processes, relations, and activities underpinning the current system of UPF provisioning. While some trade-offs may be required, particularly with respect to pragmatism and political feasibility, a strategic advantage of moving beyond UPF fetishism is that it may help to illuminate meaningful opportunities for collaboration within the vast ecology of values-aligned movements seeking better diets, food systems, and economies for people and planet.